This invention relates generally to cleaning systems and more particularly to a new and novel cleaning system and cleaning unit which is totally self-contained and truck mounted for use in cleaning rugs, carpets, upholstery or the like.
It is known in the prior art to use portable type cleaning units that can be taken into a customer's home to clean rugs, carpets, upholstery and the like. Such units generally are of the cannister type or self-contained extractors having low water capabilities ranging from 5-14 gallons.
It is also known to use truck mounted cleaning units which basically use larger and higher pressure equipment. This equipment is mounted in the cleaner's truck, parked outside of the customer's home. Long hoses then connect the cleaning unit to the cleaner's scrub wand which is the device used by the operator to do the actual cleaning. Various truck mounted cleaning units have been designed and sold over the years as a way for a person to easily get into business for himself, cleaning at a customer's home.
Known prior art units have been designed using water heaters which can raise water temperature to limited temperatures by one-pass systems that raise the cleaning water up to a given temperature determined by the temperature rise available from the unit's heater. It is desirable to have a cleaning unit which can raise water temperatures to higher temperatures in order to improve cleaning abilities. The prior art limited temperature heaters also have other drawbacks when they are kerosene operated heaters, similar to known types available. Because of the use of kerosene, dangerous and smelly conditions can occur in the operator's truck as well as requiring the carrying of separate loose containers of kerosene to refill the heater's fuel tank.
When cleaning rugs and carpets, a high water pressure is used while the cleaning of upholstery requires a lower water pressure. Many known prior art cleaning units have the ability to change cleaning water pressures, but require lengthy valve adjustments with a wrench at the operator's truck on the single pressure regulator used. It would be desirable to have a quick adjusting feature in the water system of the cleaning unit to easily switch from high to low pressures and vice versa in order to minimize changeover time. In addition to performing maintenance on the water pressure system regulating valve, a lengthy downtime with known prior art units was required in removing the various pipes and connections prior to the maintenance operation. It would be desirable to provide a means to be able to quickly and easily perform maintenance and/or regulator valve replacement.
Other problems have been encountered with prior art cleaning systems when the operator travels to a job site only to find that cleaning water to operate his unit is not available for various reasons such as frozen pipes at the home, breakdown of the home owner's water well pump and for other reasons. It would thereby be very desirable to have available a self-contained water supply which could be transported to the job site should these problems present themselves. In the extraction system for the waste taken out of the customer's rug, it would be very desirable to have available higher vacuum at the scrub wand in order to effect better waste water extraction. However, prior art waste tanks generally could collapse from higher vacuums. A way to prevent waste tank collapse would be desirable and would then provide a better overall cleaning unit which could operate at higher waste water extraction vacuums.
Many known prior art cleaning units can not be truly called self-contained since they also require an electrical connection to the customer's home in order to operate various electrical devices on the cleaning unit. Should the electrical power fail at the customer's home during cleaning, the operator must either wait for the electricity to come on or stop the cleaning and return later to finish the job. This problem can greatly reduce the operator's profits and a solution would be desirable.
The prior art units shown in the pages accompanying this application have some or all of the various drawbacks hereinbefore described as well as others and while most are advertised as self-contained truck mounted, they are not, for the reasons given. Accordingly their limitations should be apparent to the reader.